Monday, February 3, 2025

Adrenaline Fatigue and The Love of God





“Ortberg notes this about the inability to love:

1. The most serious sign of hurry sickness is a diminished capacity to love. Love and hurry are fundamentally incompatible. Love always takes time, and time is one thing hurried people don’t have (87).

2. The truth is look around at our society hurried people cannot love because they are always in a hurry!

3. Ortberg adds this thought about the hurry sickness (lack of patience syndrome): It is because it kills love that hurry is the great enemy of spiritual life. Hurry lies behind much of the anger and frustration of modern life. Hurry prevents us from receiving love from the Father or giving it to His children. That’s why Jesus never hurried. If we are to follow Jesus, we must ruthlessly eliminate hurry from our lives-because, by definition, we can’t move faster than the one we are following (88).”
- John Ortberg, The Life You’ve Always Wanted

One of the horrors of modern life is that we are constantly busy, constantly thinking, or constantly scrolling on our devices. This three fold attack by the enemy, to keep us busy, to keep our thoughts constantly racing, and keep us glued to our electronic devices is deadly.

We end up in a state of fight or flight, a state of heightened intensity in your body.

“In response to acute stress, the body's sympathetic nervous system is activated by the sudden release of hormones. Fight-or-flight response hormones include adrenocorticotropic hormone and corticotropin-releasing hormone.

These hormones cause the sympathetic nervous system to stimulate the pituitary gland and adrenal glands. This triggers the release of catecholamines, including adrenaline, noradrenaline, and cortisol.” -Kendra Cherry, writer for Very Well Mind dot com.

I can tell you from experience that someone caught in fight or flight, from work stress, or past trauma, or childhood abuse, will have a very hard time perceiving and experiencing the love of God in Jesus Christ.

Now there are ways to break yourself from fight or flight mode. Long periods of prayer, breathing exercises that focus on shutting down thought in the mind, to relieve racing thoughts, and other activities as well.

This is part of spiritual warfare. The enemy keeps us constantly engaged in brain intense activities. I used to be terrible. I’d have the TV on with my Xbox game, my laptop open scrolling social media, and my cell phone in my hand, with music playing in the background.

Many times I’d hear people brag about being a great multitasker. No, you’re just dragging yourself in 5 directions at the same time and overloading your nervous system.

Then we have rampant chronic stress, chronic fatigue, and ADD, and we wonder why? I imagine many of these conditions would disappear completely if we learned to quiet ourselves, focus on God, and rest in His love. Our bodies were never designed to be constantly stimulated the way they are today.

In spiritual warfare, the battle is within ourselves. And we can and will win with God’s help. 

We’ve discussed declaring the truths of scripture to ourselves, we’ve discussed your authority in Christ in spiritual warfare, and last week we addressed how God speaks to us and gives us a vision for the future. Now today we’re focusing in on receiving and walking in the love of God in spiritual warfare.

So today in the context of studying the love of God, I want you to think about how you can slow down in life.

Turn off the television. Put away the smart phone. Close the computer down. And simply be in silence with God. And as you learn to slowly do that, you will begin to hear the voice of God.

The Apostle Paul writes in Ephesians 3, verses 14-15, “When I think of all this, I fall to my knees and pray to the Father,[e] the Creator of everything in heaven and on earth.”

What is Paul referring to here? He’s talking about being amazed at what God does. And this amazement, this awesome reverence causes him to fall to his knees in prayer.

We should also look for opportunities to be amazed at what God does. We’re going to know His love more and more deeply if we’re allowing ourselves to be amazed at what he does.

When I see a beautiful sunset I stop and remind myself: God made that. When I visit the zoo, and I see a giraffe or a lion, I remind myself God made that. And in the moment I’m filled with awe. Maybe a better word is wonder. We need wonder in our lives. We need things that take our breath away.

When you see beauty I want you to remind yourself that the beauty you perceive has an author, and that author is God almighty.

He is the Creator of everything on Earth. He made it all. He made the human race. He made the animal kingdom. He made all the trees and plants and flowers and vegetables and fruits. Give God glory.

In spiritual warfare we can get very focused on the enemy, the demonic forces and evil entities. But, we have to keep our eyes on God, and see the good in life. Yes there’s a spiritual battle going on around us, but there is so much beauty in life, so many wonderful moments and memories. His creation is still good, even though it is fallen.

So we’re walking in wonder and awe. We’re assigning things to God. That's a biblical concept, the psalmist wrote "ascribe to God!' (Psalm 29 & 96).  It means we notice something glorious from God and we ascribe it to His doing.  

I remember when I was a new believer I was looking at pictures from the Hubble space telescope.  And suddenly I realized as I looked at the pictures, “God made these stars and galaxies.” And suddenly I looked at those pictures in an entirely new way. You can do that too.

It’s something C.S. Lewis was very good at. When he became a believer he began to look at the world with new eyes. And he began to see the world and people as made by God.

Which is why he said, “There are no ordinary people. You have never talked to a mere mortal. Nations, cultures, arts, civilizations - these are mortal, and their life is to ours as the life of a gnat. But it is immortals whom we joke with, work with, marry, snub and exploit - immortal horrors or everlasting splendors.”
― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

You can do the same thing, begin to see reality through Christian lenses, and you will see the truth. But it may take resetting how you used to view things. But after that moment, when you begin to see things through Christ, it will take you on an adventure where your perception is transformed. Everything you see in your life you will eventually view differently. The Bible calls that renewing your mind (Romans 12:1-2).

Next, verse 16, “I pray that from his glorious, unlimited resources he will empower you with inner strength through his Spirit.”

In God there is no lack. For me, when I play a few games of basketball I’m done. I’m out of energy. God has no such problem. His resources are infinite.

And God empowers his people in spiritual warfare. The concept is clear here, if we are in awe of God, then we will pray, and if we pray, then we’ll have access to empowerment from God.

And as we pray, and worship, God gives us something called inner strength. This strength comes from Christ, through the Holy Spirit, to you.

Awesome respect for God leads to prayer. Prayer leads to access to God’s unlimited resources, and through those resources we receive inner strength.

Next, verse 17: “Then Christ will make his home in your hearts as you trust in him. Your roots will grow down into God’s love and keep you strong.”

Then we find Christ in our heart. Is there a requirement for that? Yes, it’s trust. If we trust Jesus, believe in Jesus, and are deeply committed to Jesus, he will dwell in our hearts.

Then we get this picture of a tree with roots growing down into the soil. Christ is in our heart. We’re like a mighty growing tree, then, our roots will have access to God’s love. We’ll soak it up like tree roots soak up water and we’ll be abundantly nourished by it.

Next, verse 18: "And may you have the power to understand, as all God’s people should, how wide, how long, how high, and how deep his love is."

All of this is Paul praying for the believers by the way. He prays that they may have the power to understand how huge God’s love is for them.

Do you understand how much God loves you? I study near death experiences and visions of Jesus, and one thing that is always common is that the person standing before Jesus feels loved like they never did before. They feel completely accepted, completely loved, as if they were the only person in the universe. The sense is so complete it changes them.

In fact many who come back from such experiences find themselves almost haunted by what they saw, the rest of their lives, longing for the place they briefly visited, longing for the eternity they touched briefly.

Similarly, even though we don’t see Jesus face to face, we can have an understanding of how deep and wide and high his love is for us.

Ask God to explain His love to you. Make that your prayer. He will answer.

It’s four dimensional, it’s like a cube shape, full of an ocean of His love. Endlessly huge, infinite love, and also traveling along with us through life, it’s timeless. As you can see that, visualize his love, how large the container is that must hold it, you will begin to experience His love as well.

Next, verse 19: "May you experience the love of Christ, though it is too great to understand fully."

As a result of having a mental understanding of the love of God, we eventually begin to experience His love in our hearts. We feel loved. We feel known. We feel protected. We feel cared for.

Do you feel His love? If you don’t, be patient, and continue to spend time with Him. To be honest, sometimes I feel loved, sometimes I don’t feel it. But that’s OK, our faith isn’t based on feeling, but on truth.

Remember to slow down though, spend real time with Him, as long as you are rushing around, working constantly, on your phone scrolling, tv blaring, movies non stop, videogames, you will never really experience the love of God in a deep way. Get quiet and alone with Him. I know that's scary for some of us. But if we can push past our fear, we’ll breakthrough to Him.

Second part of verse 19, “Then you will be made complete with all the fullness of life and power that comes from God.”

In my own life, I had so many things in my walk with God, faith, trust, reason, sanctification, holiness, growth, ministry, evangelism, and so much more. But for years I was lacking a central love element.

I knew it was true, but I felt the love of God was so mistreated in the body of Christ, used as a catch all for permission to do whatever we want instead of His will, that I avoided the love of God. That was a mistake, the love of God is the centerpiece of everything else. It’s the power behind the Christian life.

When we have this relationship with God and it’s completed with real deep love, we enter the fullness of life and power. We are made complete. We're full of His love and there is joy. Without that, we’re just empty.

Next, verse 20: “Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think.

Through this mystery of Christ’s love, God accomplishes much more than we could imagine. It’s very effective.

When we know we’re loved, and we strike out from a place of knowing we’re loved, well, we can accomplish anything in Christ. Anything is possible!

Lastly, verse 21: "Glory to him in the church and in Christ Jesus through all generations forever and ever! Amen.”

The result is we give glory to God and glory to God’s son Jesus, amen. Knowing we’re loved, being filled with inner strength, walking in the awe of God, we reflect Christ like the moon reflects the sun.

And we live lives in alignment with God’s beautiful purposes. We become like a sunset or sunrise or star filled sky, others look at us and say wow, look what God did. And so we bring glory to God through how we are loved and love others.

If we don’t walk in the love of God, we will become increasingly empty and exhausted with the Christian life. We’ll think it’s just too hard, too many rules, and too much anxiety. We’ll feel burdened by the commands of God, and we’ll slowly grow so focused on the rules that we can’t sense His love at all. And that’s how you get someone who slowly begins to make it all about them, and not about God. They claim to follow God, but they really follow themselves. Self righteousness, is what that is. They slowly transfer their salvation away from God and onto themselves. And then they are dead legalists. There is no Spirit anymore.

But, if we allow the love of God to flow through us, empower us, and strengthen us, we will grow and grow like a mighty tree planted by streams of living water. Christ fills our heart and we are truly humbly dedicated to Him. His love amazes us, and we want to do anything for Him, because we experience meaningful relationship with Him. It’s not dead legalism, it’s living, deep, rapturous love that makes us hunger for more and more of Him. Then we are plugged into the vine, fed by the source, that is Jesus, He lives within our hearts and constantly feeds us His life and power, and it surges through our vines. We are deeply empowered, loved, held, and the power of God surges within us like sweet warmth, like surging electricity, or like a burning fire within us, mighty and strong. His love is powerful beyond words! More than we could ever think or imagine!

Don’t ever lose touch with that simple love relationship, slow down and spend time with Him, receive His love, and you’ll be amazed how he fills you and empowers you for service.

Main Points:
1. When we See the beauty/wonder in life it leads us to prayer

2. Prayer leads us to empowerment – we receive inner strength from God

3. Christ makes his home in our hearts - through deep trust

4. Power to understand is needed - How vast God’s love is for you

5. Then it’s experienced, known, and this experience changes us

6. Jesus makes us complete as a believer through His love

7. If we know his love, we have fullness of life and power (from God)

8. As we live in the love of God we are a testimony of God’s glory